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What does "gas saver" mean?

At the risk of sounding like a total "newbie".. (ok I am, I've still found less than 100 GC's), What does a "gas saver" cache mean? I've seen many around trail heads, and have found several, but I dont feel like I've saved any gas driving to them?
Why aren't they called trail head caches? Am I looking at this all wrong?

It means there is more than one cache in the area. So you'd park, find one cache around the trailhead and then find atleast one more on the trail, sometimes more than one. It's a twofor, or threefor...you get the idea!

I'm sure to get a few hate mails for this, but they've been slowing down lately.

Gas Saver caches have been incorrectly named. You are correct, they don't save you any gas at all. They should have been named Number Jumper caches! They give you a chance to get a 'quick' extra cache next to the road when the original cache hider thought he'd give you some exercise and make you walk 600 feet or more into the woods to see that unique location, instead of showing you that guardrail at the trail head.

And in case you find the 4.5 difficulty suspicious for a Gas Saver cache, you are correct. It is incorrectly rated. The Difficulty was increased because it is a long drive to the location, not because the actual cache is hard to find. To make matters worse, it appears it could be missing and the cache placer lives out of state.

Another reason.....

Before there were child waypoints on the cache page. One of the first reasons for a gas saver, was due to the lack of parking or trail head coordinates posted on the page. A cache could be placed where you should park and then at the trail head. Knowing where to park would save you gas, because you would not get lost looking for where to start.

Thus the name......" Gas saver "

Why not live life like it is your last day....instead of pretending to be a member of the Peter Pan Club and believing you will be around forever.

Before there were child waypoints on the cache page. One of the first reasons for a gas saver, was due to the lack of parking or trail head coordinates posted on the page. A cache could be placed where you should park and then at the trail head. Knowing where to park would save you gas, because you would not get lost looking for where to start.

Thus the name......" Gas saver "

This is one of the pet peeves I have with Gas Savers. If the Gas Saver cache is placed by the person who placed the other cache(s) down the trail, I don't have a problem with it. A great example of this is HIRUNDO - GAS SAVER (GC1BY6Q) by Friend of Hirundo(1/1.5).

However, I have seen several Gas Saver caches which were placed by people other than those who placed the caches up the trail. I'm sure it bothers me more than many, but I think if a cache placer wanted to give parking coords, he would have done so. If I had a cache I purposely wanted cachers to work to find the trail head, I would be upset if a Gas Saver cache was placed there.

Also, before there were child waypoints on a cache page, multicaches were still an option. But, multis don't help with the numbers as much. I have a multi that uses stages to locate the parking and trail points just to keep people on track. I could have made them all separate caches. But that's just not my style!

Well having spent a summer in a walking cast I found a new appreciation for guardrail caches (GRC's) and light post caches (LPC's) as that was all that I was able to do. Last weekend I was fortunate to be able to do a 33 stage multi in Central Park, New York which took us 7 hours and 12 miles (GC17MX1) . I am grateful for the spectrum of cache terrain and ability. I think all caches (including gas saver, LPC's and GRC's) have their place in this activity/sport/hobby and people are free to take what they like and leave the rest.